“Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant,” Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau told the Press Club in Washington, D.C. on March 25, 1969. “No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. Even a friendly nuzzling can sometimes lead to frightening consequences.”

That image — Canada as the tiny mouse sleeping light next to Leviathan — has recurred many times in descriptions of not just our relationship with America, but of America’s relationship with the world. They don’t call the president of the United States the “leader of the Free World” for nothing. Since the early part of the twentieth century, America has stood athwart a steady stream of tyrants, dictators, terrorists and thugs. In the defence of freedom, it often employed the very tactics employed by the monsters it was trying to defeat — preemptive war, torture, espionage and assassination. Always it would argue that, as long as the end was liberty, it would justify the means.

The price of freedom is high, but it’s a lot easier to bear when someone else is picking up the cheque. Over the past thirty years, Canada has been spending between 1 and 2 per cent of its GDP on the military; in the U.S., the range is between 3.5 and 5.6 per cent. Even at the height of the Cold War, Canada could breathe a lot easier than our European allies; better an American elephant than a Russian bear for a bedfellow. Canada has not had to fear invasion or attack for much of the last century — a fact for which we can largely thank our southern neighbour.

But does this “friends with benefits” arrangement prevent us from criticizing our neighbours when warranted? Not at all. Especially not now.

Canada has differed with the United States on several foreign policy issues — apartheid in South Africa and the Iraq war, to name just two. Sometimes we manage to convince Washington, sometimes we don’t. But we seldom hesitate to call a spade a spade — as Trudeau Sr. did in 1969, and as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did this weekend on the CBS program 60 Minutes.

The ends aren’t justifying the means this time, because the ends have nothing to do with protecting American values or interests. They’re all about Donald Trump — what he wants, the lies he’s willing to tell to get what he wants.

In a wide-ranging conversation, interviewer Lara Logan asked Trudeau what Canadians don’t like about Americans. Trudeau answered with a thinly-veiled reference to an unnamed presidential aspirant whose name rhymes with ‘slump’: “Having a little more of an awareness of what’s going on in the rest of the world, I think, is what many Canadians would hope for Americans.”

Donald Trump incarnates the stereotype of the Ugly American, a pejorative term coined in a 1958 book of the same name. In it, authors William Lederer and Eugene Burdick tell the story of blundering American bureaucrats in Southeast Asia, whose aid efforts confer greater benefit on U.S. businesses than on the local population. The term has been used ever since to describe ignorant, boorish American tourists, politicians, businesspeople and celebrities, lording it over the less favoured.

Trump takes the Ugly American to new lows. Never before has a presidential debate featured references to a candidate’s genitalia. Never before has a candidate — at least one who had a chance of winning — been so openly embraced by white supremacists. And never before has a presidential aspirant made foreign policy statements like this: “Let Syria and ISIS fight. Why do we care? Let ISIS and Syria fight. And let Russia, they’re in Syria already, let them fight ISIS.”

To say that Trump and many of his supporters are unaware of what is going on in the rest of the world would be to offer an understatement. Trumps himself voiced his great affection for his “poorly educated” fans after winning the Nevada Republican caucuses. Ignorance is no longer a vice in American politics. It’s not even a modest drawback. Trump has made ignorance of the world, the nature of government and the U.S. Constitution a positive qualification for office, and for being one of his supporters.

But Trudeau wasn’t being smug. He was speaking truth to power, or power-in-waiting — at a time when many in the U.S. would do well to listen. Like his father, Trudeau pointed out something about Americans that Americans are seldom going to notice themselves — that they are all too often oblivious of the interests and experiences of the people with whom they share the planet. The elephant won’t crush the mouse out of malice — but he might do it out of ignorance.

In Trump’s case, the ignorance is wilful — even celebrated by those who profess it. Anti-elitism has combined with racism to fuel Trump’s rise. Malicious verbal — or physical — attacks are visited on those who disagree with him. The ends aren’t justifying the means this time, because the ends have nothing to do with protecting American values or interests. They’re all about Donald Trump — what he wants, the lies he’s willing to tell to get what he wants.

Trump’s campaign carries all the hallmarks of tyranny — towards other nations, towards the American people themselves. And it won’t help Americans defend themselves … or us.

Tasha Kheiriddin is a political writer and broadcaster who frequently comments in both English and French. After practising law and a stint in the government of Mike Harris, Tasha became the Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and co-wrote the 2005 bestseller, Rescuing Canada’s Right: Blueprint for a Conservative Revolution. Tasha moved back to Montreal in 2006 and served as vice-president of the Montreal Economic Institute, and later director for Quebec of the Fraser Institute, while also lecturing on conservative politics at McGill University. Tasha now lives in Whitby, Ontario with her daughter Zara, born in 2009.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.